You say, "Stating that athlete X tested positive is knowingly false, isn't speculation, doesn't help our sport"
I agree that is the case if Person "A" says the above and knows it to be false. However, everyone they tell does not know it to be knowingly false. And rumors aren't usually that clear cut. Someone might say, "I think athlete X tested positive because of XYZ". As it gets passed down it becomes something more concrete or even more distorted. Or in this case the 4th post of this thread, "Centro tested positive. Hence why he hasn't raced as of late. Word will eventually leak out." Is the poster saying "I know" that happened or "I heard". They are different things. Your implication is it is the "I know" but it's an anonymous message board so I think some people might go for the "I heard" interpretation.
I don't feel better about US running now. I don't feel worse about it or LetsRun either. When, Regina Jacobs pulled out of the 2000 Olympics, people were crazy with speculation as to why.
If someone at the time had said, "She tested positive" I wouldn't know it to be false (yet it would have been).
Let's take a better example an athlete who didn't eventually test positive, Paula Radcliffe. If before Athens, she said, "I can't compete because of injury" and someone else said, "she is withdrawing because of a drug positive" I wouldn't have known the latter is false.
I think the best course of action is to let the issue to be discussed and for the athlete to issue the statement like Matt did in this instance. This was already being discussed offline. Now at least it is out in the open and Matt can address it. I first heard a rumor the middle of last week. We've always said is LetsRun is the continuation of what people are talking about on their runs once they get online.
The yellow box is not autogenerated. The super hot is. I should look into and see if it is not working on the new server as this thread likely should be super hot.